[HN Gopher] WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics
___________________________________________________________________
WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics
Author : whereistimbo
Score : 338 points
Date : 2024-05-23 02:34 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (windirstat.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (windirstat.net)
| hilbert42 wrote:
| It's likely the product is now abandoned-ware or no longer
| developed. I'm sure this is the same version (or just a point
| different) that I had on my PC about a decade or so go. That
| said, that version worked OK.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I've used windirstat recently and it worked fine. Valuable to
| find the wasted space...
| notachatbot1234 wrote:
| That might just mean that the product is good and finished.
| thefz wrote:
| But... it does not have an AI bot!
|
| Seriously, been using WDS for years and I could not care less
| about new features or its speed.
| varispeed wrote:
| "What would you like to delete today? Here are 10
| suggestions that will blow your mind. CLICK HERE"
| SuperHeavy256 wrote:
| This!
| nray wrote:
| Still used in Windows IT environments as it's portable, even if
| it is a bit slow and there is no console version for generating
| tree-maps for remote viewing.
| xd1936 wrote:
| https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat-next
| Tiberium wrote:
| Not open source (freeware), but much faster than WinDirStat for
| NTFS - WizTree https://diskanalyzer.com/. In short - it scans the
| actual filesystem metadata directly instead of enumerating files
| through the OS APIs, which makes it extremely fast.
| seffect wrote:
| Nice, so a bit like Everything but for disk space!
| nopcode wrote:
| The same dev has an Everything alternative: WizFile [1]
|
| [1]: https://antibody-software.com/wizfile/
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I like "ncdu", a TUI equivalent for Unixy systems.
|
| Although I learned the hard way that if you run it on a Mac home
| folder, and have iCloud's "optimize Mac storage" turned on, macOS
| will suddenly try to download literally everything in your iCloud
| storage to try to count the size of it, probably filling your
| disk. Oops.
| user3939382 wrote:
| DaisyDisk is an awesome macOS GUI version of this app
| ck45 wrote:
| I'm still using the free OmniDiskSweeper from the legendary
| OmniGroup
| vetinari wrote:
| When mentioning ancient utilities, I'm still on Disk
| Inventory X.
| angch wrote:
| There's also "diskonaut", a TUI which displays the output like
| the treemap of WinDirStat. Bonus is that the display is
| incremental and updates as it scans everything, so you don't
| need to wait for the complete scan to see how everything looks
| like.
|
| Written in Rust, and it's a `cargo install diskonaut` away if
| you have the rust toolchain installed.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| I switched to gdu a couple years back for reasons that I do not
| remember. I think it is faster or something.
| qwertox wrote:
| `ncdu` has the `-x` flag which means that "Only count files and
| directories on the same filesystem as the specified dir.".
|
| Maybe that could help.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Sadly it does not help, the files appear to be normal files
| in the same filesystem, macOS simply does magic behind the
| scenes.
|
| You have to manually tell ncdu not to scan the
| ~/Library/Mobile Documents directory.
| xxpor wrote:
| don't execute a (space taking) write operation when the user
| requests a read seems to be a reasonable rule for most things.
| wonger_ wrote:
| I'm a big fan of godu: https://github.com/viktomas/godu
| nickcw wrote:
| You can use `rclone ncdu` to work in a very similar way on any
| cloud storage that rclone supports
|
| https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ncdu/
|
| I love ncdu and this is my homage to it!
| oxygen_crisis wrote:
| WizTree is famously almost 50x faster than WinDirStat (on normal
| Windows NTFS drives) by reading the Master File Table (MFT)
| instead of walking the tree to measure each file.
|
| WizTree isn't open-source like WinDirStat but "free as in beer"
| with optional donations.
|
| There's also a fork of WinDirStat patched to read the MFT but I
| don't know anyone who's tried it:
| https://github.com/ariccio/altWinDirStat
| matthews2 wrote:
| More MFT goodness: the file search tool Everything
| (https://www.voidtools.com/)
| la_oveja wrote:
| essential tool
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| So that's why Everything is so fast. Nice.
| rezolva wrote:
| I am building an advanced filemanager (FileNinja) for Windows
| with full integrated everything search & query. you have the
| option of saving bookmarks to virtual folders that consist of
| everything searches. Instant directory sizes, tags, custom
| file descriptions for ntfs. Anyone interested?
| https://youtu.be/JREufgkf5pk?si=sP05UCOrskpX8OTq
| SuperHeavy256 wrote:
| haha I like the voiceover, the video is fun
| Multicomp wrote:
| I'm interested! Great marketing video by the way, a good
| example of using AI-powered voiceovers to level up the one-
| man-marketing polish capabilities.
| jron wrote:
| Do you have a git repo to follow?
| joakim0 wrote:
| You can check out the following sites
| https://github.com/sandeberger, http:\\\thefile.ninja or
| my homepage at https://kodar.ninja. The project is not
| opensource.
| jug wrote:
| It's crazy how the Windows Search Indexer still doesn't use
| MFT.
|
| It doesn't even bloody support network drives so there's no
| such reason.
| LelouBil wrote:
| I want to like Everything but every time I start it up it
| takes 30 sec to 1 minute to update it's index
| xnx wrote:
| You can set it to run on startup or as a service so it
| updates the index in the background.
| letmevoteplease wrote:
| Try Everything 1.5a - an "alpha" version with many
| improvements, in development for years but inexplicably
| hidden away on their website. Never experienced any
| instability.
|
| https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9787
| skeaker wrote:
| Wow! Shocked that this is the first I've heard of this
| given that I've been using Everything for years now.
| Thanks for the link.
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| Uninstall, re-install as a service which may now be
| default.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Better as a service too because the GUI doesn't need to
| request admin rights.
| naikrovek wrote:
| You should not be starting it when you want to search. You
| should open it when you log in, and leave it in the tray.
| It will do a full index on launch then subscribe to
| filesystem notifications to keep itself up to date for as
| long as it's open.
|
| Do that and it's alarmingly fast and responsive except for
| the minute or two right after launch.
| Saris wrote:
| It should be starting at boot if you installed it as a
| service, so the indexing will be done then. After that
| opening and searching is instant.
| benjaminpv wrote:
| Contrasting seemingly all the other responses to this, I
| use it the same way you do (only opening it when needed)
| and I'm fine with the delay: even at its slowest rebuilding
| the index and searching is faster than the in-built windows
| Search.
| CJefferson wrote:
| WizTree also understands things like OneDrive and Dropbox, and
| know that files "stored in the cloud" aren't taking up any disc
| space -- WinDirStat thinks my drive is 140% full.
| cm2187 wrote:
| What about hard links?
| useless_foghorn wrote:
| Wiztree and WinDirStat will both double count hard links. I
| have a 12TB hard drive holding "17TB" because of sparse
| files and hard links. Windows file manager properties agree
| with Wiztree and WinDirStat as far as space used. I think
| the file manager looks for free space and calculates that
| separately, while Wiztree and WinDirStat are just adding up
| used space.
| _zamorano_ wrote:
| Didn't try AltWinDirStat, but did try FastWinDirStat.
|
| The thing is, FastWinDirStat uses a licensed propietary
| component. No problem for me, but the author did have some back
| and forth with another user on GitHub.
|
| Seems FastWinDirStat license don't match with using a closed
| source library, or something...
|
| As for its actual functioning, it does as it says. Works much
| faster than WinDirStat
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Looks like a pretty clear violation of the WinDirStat
| license. They took WinDirStat which is GPL, linked it with
| some other proprieraty code and distributed the result.
|
| (They could have been clear-ish (with caveats) by
| distributing only the source code and let the users do the
| compiling and linking, similarly to how you could download
| ZFS and build it into Linux. But you mustn't distribute the
| result further.)
| mardifoufs wrote:
| What's the downside of just reading the MFT? Why doesn't
| Microsoft do it in file explorer, and why wouldn't every tool
| use it instead of walking through the file system? Maybe
| there's no downside but it's such a huge speed boost that it
| would be weird to not use it otherwise, right?
| password4321 wrote:
| Reading the MFT directly requires Administrator permissions,
| and doing it correctly means reimplementing support for every
| nook and cranny of NTFS including things like hard links,
| junction/reparse/mount points, sparse files, etc.
| hd4 wrote:
| Spacemonger uses the MFT and doesn't require Administrator
| privileges
| smusamashah wrote:
| Is this the Spacemonger you are talking about https://web
| .archive.org/web/20121126062443/http://www.sixty-...
|
| It does not say anything like that in FAQ and i don't
| remember it being fast.
| hd4 wrote:
| Yes that one. Just use it and see. It's blazing fast.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Just learned that its open source now
| https://github.com/seanofw/spacemonger1
| soylentcola wrote:
| Been using the portable version of 1.4 for decades after
| first coming across it in some PC magazine or something
| like that many years ago. Not terribly pretty, but it
| does what I need and it still works.
| password4321 wrote:
| I thought you meant the $15 utility from Stardock, but if
| not then I'm fairly confident it's not reading the MFT.
|
| https://github.com/seanofw/spacemonger1/blob/6a41c012534b
| 170...
| hd4 wrote:
| It's still interesting that they got it to work as fast
| and precise as they did.
| adzm wrote:
| It uses FindFirstFile etc https://github.com/seanofw/spac
| emonger1/blob/6a41c012534b170...
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| AFAIR MFT access requires Administrator/SYSTEM rights and
| there is absolutely no way to read it as a regular user.
|
| The only workaround (used by Everything by VoidTools) is
| to install a service which would run with a needed rights
| and communicate with it in the GUI.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| You call that a workaround but it's basically the best
| possible situation security-wise. If this didn't work
| securely then it wouldn't be possible to implement disk
| defragmenter or even explorer. It's so core to Windows
| NT's security model that I wouldn't call it a workaround.
|
| You do similar things even with more modern stacks -
| assign a permission to an application and grant
| permissions to the application to the user.
|
| The only real concern is that Windows NT permissions are
| not as granular as they could be.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > Windows NT permissions are not as granular as they
| could be.
|
| For objects, Windows NT permissions are ridiculously
| granular; e.g. GENERIC_WRITE can be mapped to a half-
| dozen separately settable type-specific flags, depending
| on the object type (file, named pipe, etc.). It's _too_
| granular for even an administrator to make sense of,
| arguably, and the documentation is somewhere between bad
| and nonexistent. (The UI varies from decent, like the ACL
| editor you can access from e.g. Explorer, to "you can't
| make this shit up", like SDDL[1].)
|
| For subjects, the situation is not good, like on every
| other conventional OS. You could deal with that by
| introducing a "user" for each app, as on Android. But I'm
| not aware of any attempts to do that (that would expose
| this mechanism in a user-visible way).
|
| (Then there's the UWP sandbox, which as far as I tell is
| build with complete disregard of the fundamental concepts
| above. I don't think it's worth taking seriously at this
| time.)
|
| [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/win32/secauthz/sec...
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I have no idea how if there's a granular object
| permission that could give access to the MBR of a disk.
| I've thankfully never had to dig that deep into Windows
| internals.
|
| I've had to work with SDDL before to setup granular
| permissions for WMI monitoring on a whole lot of
| computers and my god, did it make me love the Cloud and
| Linux. I can't emphasize enough how unintuitive setting
| these permissions is creates systemic over privileging.
| jasode wrote:
| _> What's the downside of just reading the MFT? Why doesn't
| Microsoft do it in file explorer, and why wouldn't every tool
| use it instead of walking through the file system?_
|
| One disadvantage is that you can't read the MFT of network
| shares or device emulators presenting "virtual drive letters"
| to the OS.
|
| The typical (and slower) Win32 API functions
| FindFirstFile()/FindNextFile() used to iterate through the
| files structure work at a higher level of abstraction so they
| work on more targets that don't have an NTFS MFT. Indeed, if
| you point WizTree to a SMB network share, it will be a lot
| slower because it can't directly read the MFT.
|
| It's conceivable that Microsoft developers could have
| programmed Windows Explorer differently to have an optimized
| code path of reading MFT for local disks and then fall back
| to slower FindFirstFile()/FindNextFile() for non-MFT disks.
| Maybe that adds too much complexity and weird bugs. I notice
| that most of the 3rd-party "Win Explorer replacement"
| utilities also don't read MFT.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > It's conceivable that Microsoft developers could have
| programmed Windows Explorer differently to have an
| optimized code path of reading MFT for local disks and then
| fall back to slower FindFirstFile()/FindNextFile() for non-
| MFT disks
|
| Surely this would have been worth doing, even if it meant
| flushing out bugs elsewhere.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> What 's the downside of just reading the MFT?_
|
| One possible reason is that it isn't a published part of the
| filesystem's external interface, and the format is not
| guaranteed to be static between versions or even point
| releases (though in reality, while the behaviours may be
| officially undefined that are unlikely to change
| significantly).
|
| Also, it requires admin elevation to access. Anything running
| elevated is a potential security concern as it can access
| much else too.
|
| _> Why doesn 't Microsoft do it in file explorer_
|
| Not sure, but it could be because that would be seen as an
| unfair advantage so to avoid anti-trust allegations they
| would have to publish the format and make stability
| guarantees for it, so others could use it as easily/safely.
| That, and the reasons above & below too.
|
| _> and why wouldn 't every tool use it instead of walking
| through the file system?_
|
| Largely because walking the filesystem works for all
| filesystems, local and remote, so you cover everything with
| one tree walk implementation. Implementing a tree-walk over
| the MFT data where available is extra work to implement and
| support for one filesystem, and not many care enough, or are
| not aware of the potential speed benefit at all, for it to be
| a huge selling point such that all toolmakers feel compelled
| to bother.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| > One possible reason is that it isn't a published part of
| the filesystem's external interface, and the format is not
| guaranteed to be static between versions or even point
| releases (though in reality, while the behaviours may be
| officially undefined that are unlikely to change
| significantly).
|
| I am not going to pull every document, but the MFT
| structure is documented and published. I am uncertain what
| you mean by "external interface".
|
| "About 9,810 results (0.04 sec)"
|
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C11&q=mf
| t...
| userbinator wrote:
| Moreover it is documented by Microsoft itself:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/win32/devnotes/mas...
| loeg wrote:
| It's probably also racy to access the raw MFT while there
| are concurrent programs creating new files (or deleting
| files). That complication can be avoided by using the
| ordinary OS directory iteration primitives.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Yep but then the tradeoff of performance gains are
| completely discarded. The easiest solution is to take a
| snapshot with VSS, which is both fast and makes a
| quiesced copy of $MFT. From there, one could monitor FS
| changes if they wanted to have live updates.
| becurious wrote:
| Along with the reasons others have mentioned, it would also
| bypass any filter driver in the file system stack (Windows
| has the concept of a stack of filter drivers that can sit in
| front of the file system or hardware) and would also ignore
| any permissions (ACLs) on who can see those files. There's no
| way they can credibly use this technique outside of say
| something from SysInternals: it violates the security and
| layering of the operating system and its APIs.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Is there a Linux equivalent for those "filters"? I'm a bit
| clueless about win32 and NT sadly enough...
|
| Would that mean that there's no way to "scope" the MFTs?
|
| Edit: That also makes sense, since if I got it right they
| aren't necessarily supposed to be consumed by userspace
| programs?
|
| I guess that's why those tools always ask for admin access
| and basically all perms to the FS.
|
| It's a bit sad that the user gets exposed to a much slower
| search and FS experience even if the system underneath has
| the potential to be as fast as it gets. And I don't think
| ReFS is intended to replace NTFS (not that it's necessarily
| more performant anyways)
| webstrand wrote:
| I believe they're approximately equivalent to FUSE
| loeg wrote:
| Filters are vaguely similar to things like mountpoints
| overlaying portions of the filesystem. E.g. in Linux you
| might have files in /d1/d2/{f1,f2,f3} in the root
| filesystem but you also have a mountpoint of a 2nd
| filesystem on /d1/d2 that completely changes the
| visibility / contents of d2. Filter drivers can do
| similar things (although they are not actually
| independent mountpoints).
| wongarsu wrote:
| There is no equivalent on Linux. That's why linux has no
| online antivirus scanners (scanners that scan the file as
| it's opened) while this is a basic feature of every
| antivirus program on Windows.
|
| Linux has device mappers (dm-crypt, dm-raid and friends).
| But those sit below the file system, emulating a device.
| Window's file system filter drivers sit above the file
| system, intercepting API calls to and from the file
| system. That's super useful if you want to check file
| contents on access, track where files are going, keep an
| audit log of who accessed a file, transparently encrypt
| single files instead of whole volumes, etc. But you pay
| the price for all that flexibility in performance.
| Spivak wrote:
| Sure there is, you're talking about fanotify.
|
| https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/fanotify.7.html
|
| https://lwn.net/Articles/339399/
|
| It even lets you block the access until the scan/decision
| is made.
| SSLy wrote:
| What are the APIs related to this named?
| mastax wrote:
| IO Minifilter drivers are the modern version:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
| hardware/drivers/i...
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > it violates the security ... of the operating system
|
| Maybe stating the obvious, but if the security can be
| violated that easily, it's not very secure.
| wongarsu wrote:
| You need admin permissions to read the MFT on Windows.
| The traditional security model of both Windows and Linux
| assumes that the kernel is a security barrier between
| system and unprivileged user, and between different
| unprivileged users. An admin being able to bypass
| security restrictions isn't traditionally seen as a
| problem.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| With RAM sizes now, it's curious why any OS wouldn't just
| cache some or all of metadata for some local volumes on a
| block basis rather incur the greater resource usage of
| transforming disk into different structures, and then caching
| and track individual entries.
| SSLy wrote:
| I wish there was a duplicate file finder that used the MFT scan
| to pre-process the data instead of the FS tree walk
| password4321 wrote:
| WizTree is no longer free for commercial use.
|
| I believe version 3.38 was the last version that is completely
| _" free as in beer" with optional donations_.
| Sakos wrote:
| Seeing a description directly in the README for the folders in
| the repo and their contents makes me really happy. I wish more
| projects would do that.
| brnt wrote:
| I'm a big Filelight fan. It used to not work well on NTFS
| volumes, it would miss files flagged Archived, has that been
| solved?
| tyleo wrote:
| You've got me interested but I'm finding it quite annoying that
| WizTree doesn't actually have pictures of the software UI on
| the website. At least not under any of the obvious links I've
| checked.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| If you want to see screenshots of any piece of software, just
| search the name of the software on your favorite search
| engine and go to 'images'.
|
| (This might seem obvious, but it took me a long time to
| realize, hence why I'm passing the tip on.)
| rkagerer wrote:
| FileLocator Pro is a good search tool that also uses the MFT.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| > WizTree isn't open-source like WinDirStat but "free as in
| beer" with optional donations.
|
| Which is enough for me to not use it because WinDirStat still
| only takes a minute. Cool software though.
| 8372049 wrote:
| Exactly this.
| burnte wrote:
| SpaceSniffer is a much easier to use tool.
| kuro_neko wrote:
| It's a longtime friend of mine who has kept my computer from
| wasting space. But it's pretty outdated, and I think there are
| better programs out there now.
| martin293 wrote:
| Such as?
| kuro_neko wrote:
| WizTree, TreeSize or Fast WinDirStat (just fork).
|
| But I still like to turn on WinDirStat and take a moment to
| relax.
| SuperHeavy256 wrote:
| based.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Can WinDirStat deal with hard links nowadays? Windows uses them
| extensively in the WinSxX folder and possibly elsewhere.
| svag wrote:
| For anyone who wants to find more information regarding treemaps,
| which are used in this application, this link
| https://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap-history/ has some history
| about treemaps and here
| https://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap/demos/ you can find a Java
| implementation where you can play
| convFixb wrote:
| Note: There's a gotcha when using it in multi-user environments
| (like a server).
|
| Users with Administrator access do not have permission to
| enumerate directories / files inside other Admin users home
| directories. So any per-user files are not counted in this
| scenario.
|
| Source: 'The mysterious case of the Windows server with a full
| disk but WinDirStat shows it as only half-full' :-)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It can't get to all the files even for a single admin user, you
| need to do something like run it as system with psexec.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Yes, that's why WinDirStat is a no go at all.
|
| Use WizTree, or any other util what reads NTFS MFT directly.
| kid64 wrote:
| I recently observed, much to my delight, that WinDirStat runs
| flawlessly on Android under Winlator (https://www.winlator.org/).
| xnx wrote:
| Wow. A system utility that reads the Windows MFT is about the
| last thing (after system drivers maybe) that I would expect to
| work under an emulator on Android.
| drpossum wrote:
| I like how in the Year of our Lord 2024 this is not some basic
| functionality provided with the operating system.
| system2 wrote:
| Up until very recently we couldn't even open zip files without
| a helper software. Unsure why microsoft doesn't add things like
| powertoys by default.
| rezaprima wrote:
| or reproduce something like ZipMagic (iirc, so defunct that
| its website is gone)
| bdowling wrote:
| Zip file support has been in Windows since 98 (via the Plus
| pack) or Me (2000).
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_(file_format)
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Think they just added 7z and rar support very recently
| though. But zip has been in there for ages... I use it all
| the time.
| okanat wrote:
| Your first statement is already refuted by other commenters.
|
| For the second, the reason is offical software support,
| internationalization and accessibility. Microsoft provides
| certain guarantees for its officially released software. They
| don't want to provide those for Powertoys.
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| 25 years ago is not "recently".
| prettyStandard wrote:
| In technology years it's getting longer every year.
| delfinom wrote:
| Windows could open zip files all the way back to the XP
| era....
| delfinom wrote:
| Windows could open zip files all the way back to the XP
| era....
| dole wrote:
| I'm just grateful we're not counting file shit in "blocks"
| anymore.
| robertoandred wrote:
| It still shocks me that windows can't sort folders by size
| smusamashah wrote:
| I find Space Sniffer
| http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/ to be a much
| better visualisation. It updates in near real-time. If you have
| lots of copy/move ops going in background, you will see those
| dirs blinking rectangles growing/shirking in Space Sniffer.
|
| To me, this is a clone of (now dead) Space Monger
| https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=150
| Sakos wrote:
| I really like the visualization, the functionality to watch
| live file access is so freaking cool. It's a bit slow though,
| no? After using something like WizTree, it's hard to go to
| something that needs minutes to finish scanning. I do wonder
| what kind of a performance impact it has.
| smusamashah wrote:
| It takes time for first indexing, yes. But once its done, any
| copy/move you do afterwards shows up in the UI at the same
| time.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| I used Space Sniffer for a very long time, but looked for
| alternatives because it crashes somewhat regularly and is
| generally a bit of a resource hog.
|
| Since trying WizTree I don't think I'll ever go back, it's so
| much faster, hasn't crashed once on me, and the visualizations
| are completely adequate for me to be able to see where space is
| being used.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Just learned that Space Monger 1.4 has been open sourced for a
| while now https://github.com/seanofw/spacemonger1
|
| Accompanying blog post https://www.werkema.com/programming/the-
| spacemonger-1-x-post...
| myfonj wrote:
| I like Diskitude by Evan Wallace the most for this kind of quick
| and easy drive content sizes inspection. It does full scan, but
| is pretty fast and easy to use. And is super tiny.
|
| https://madebyevan.com/diskitude/
| iKlsR wrote:
| I was about to share this, I just told someone about it the
| other night, been using it well over a decade now without any
| issue, the same exe I downloaded in 2011 or so.
| Frenzyk wrote:
| https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free has been my companion
| for years, fast and clean
| qwertox wrote:
| Same for me. Before using it I was using WinDirStat and before
| that SequoiaView, but I've now stuck to using only TreeSize
| Free for years now. It's good enough and the user interface is
| very clean.
| parker-3461 wrote:
| Many good alternative listed already.
|
| But I have quite liked FileLight which is cross platform
| https://apps.kde.org/filelight/
|
| Likely not as fast as WizTree though.
|
| Edit 1: source at https://invent.kde.org/utilities/filelight with
| GPL 2.0 licence
| dunk010 wrote:
| I've used this in the past, it's really great.
| bool3max wrote:
| For Linux there's QDirStat:
| https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat
| noselasd wrote:
| or Baobab
| https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/DiskUsageAnalyzer?ac...
| Neil44 wrote:
| du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -h
| arsome wrote:
| If you want a nicer presentation, try ncdu.
| goffi wrote:
| I really like the fsview plugin that comes with Konqueror. It
| can be run independently: `fsview /some/dir`.
| immibis wrote:
| IIRC WinDirStat is inspired by it.
| xnx wrote:
| Any good (preferably open) WinDirStat alternatives for Android?
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Other Linux implementations:
|
| - https://github.com/bootandy/dust (command line, extremely fast)
| - mate-disk-usage-analyzer (gui/gtk, a bit more intuitive and
| allows operating on files too).
| SuperHeavy256 wrote:
| I tried many other so called "successors" to WinDirStat. I didn't
| like a single one of them, each of them had some significant
| problem.
|
| This is a case of "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". This
| executable is from 2005 and still works flawlessly.
|
| If you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to!
| benjijay wrote:
| I used to have similar views, but last year found out about
| WizTree and was instantly converted. Way faster, just as
| functional.
| molticrystal wrote:
| They are getting very close to releasing windirstat-next [0] and
| already have some betas out, you can learn more about it in the
| subreddit. [1]
|
| >WinDirStat fans,
|
| >As a new pet project, I recently started some substantial
| revisions to WinDirStat in my GitHub branch and will work with
| current maintainer (Oliver Schneider) to eventually publish a new
| release hopefully in the next few months. The current changes on
| deck speed up performance drastically (seconds compared to
| minutes in some cases). It uses less memory compared to recent
| alternatives (WizTree), is faster as scanning network paths, and
| obviously isn't pushy about donating (although I certainly would
| not discourage folks from donating to their favorite opensource
| projects).
|
| >Oliver recently opened up the GitHub Issues trackers, and I
| would love to hear suggestions or known bugs for the existing
| version:
|
| >For the nerds interested in the changes I have queued up, you
| can visit the GitHub page
|
| [0] https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat-next
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/WinDirStat/
| mlrtime wrote:
| Hijacking this comment...
|
| Does anyone know anything close to WinDirStat for google drive?
| I really need something like this.
| rmholt wrote:
| Mount Google Drive as a folder (rclone) and run WinDirStat?
| i15e wrote:
| You could install the Google Drive client and then run
| WinDirStat against the virtual drive letter that it creates:
|
| https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10838124
| xd1936 wrote:
| I have done this before, and it works, but the client
| downloads every single file locally in the background
| before it's able to do the comparison. I suspect this is
| because WinDirStat requests metadata about the file itself,
| and the sync client needs to download the files in order to
| serve that metadata and/or file contents information to the
| application.
| swozey wrote:
| About a decade ago when I worked in IT I used Treesize Pro to
| scan SMB volumes and delete the MOVIES that employees had
| downloaded on their computers, which meant they were
| downloading MOVIES to our SAN because we used roaming
| profiles. I'll never get over that these people downloaded
| literal pirated movies to our servers. It was constant. I
| ended up putting file size limits on their directories, or a
| file extension block, I forget.
|
| The free version can't scan network drives if the servers on
| a domain IIRC.
|
| https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free
|
| edit: Oh I thought I read SMB drive not google drive for some
| reason. I'm not sure if this does that or not. It's my
| favorite GUI so worth checking out.
| nickcw wrote:
| You can use `rclone ncdu` on Google Drive
|
| https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ncdu/
|
| It is great at answering the question - where is all my
| storage? Also has a handy interface for deleting stuff.
| swozey wrote:
| It really frustrates me when a project has a GUI and there are
| no screenshots of it on their github.
|
| I know exactly what Windirstat looks like, I have no idea what
| this will/does look like and shouldn't have to install it to
| find out. I don't like Windirstats UI.
| mateus1 wrote:
| It is a directory view coupled to a tree map view of folders
| where the area is proportional to their size.
|
| Navigating the directory view highlights the corresponding
| area on the tree map.
|
| Files are color coded according to their type.
| 65 wrote:
| For macOS there is Disk Inventory X: https://www.derlien.com/
| userbinator wrote:
| From the download page:
|
| _It is known to run on Windows 95 (IE5), Windows 98 SE, Windows
| ME, Windows NT4 (SP5), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista,
| Windows 7, 8 and 8.1._
|
| ...it is also known to run on Windows 10 and 11, and likely any
| newer versions too. IMHO this is a great example of how software
| should be. One tiny binary that is very widely compatible, doesn
| 't have any user-hostile "features", and remains stable and bug-
| free. It's a contrast from an industry that largely can't produce
| such achievements, is becoming increasingly hostile, and quite
| telling when there are already comments here complaining about
| its age.
| moneywoes wrote:
| anything like this for mobile phones?
| skeaker wrote:
| For Android I've found a tool just called DiskUsage that does
| this, but the visualization isn't quite as good.
| netbioserror wrote:
| It still tickles me that many Linux distros come with a tool like
| this preinstalled
| (https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/DiskUsageAnalyzer). Ah,
| the good ol' Windows days of having to hunt down tools that were
| actually useful. Far in the rearview mirror for me.
| zo1 wrote:
| It tickles me that I still can't get a proper console program
| (like Conemu) on most Linux distros. Or anything resembling
| AutoHotKey or Notepad++.
|
| Like it may be fine for you, but it's definitely not a flex for
| some of us. And I use Linux as my daily driver.
| autoexec wrote:
| Notepad++ will work with wine, and there's
| https://github.com/dail8859/NotepadNext
|
| Google says there are options for autohotkey too, although
| some are works in progress:
|
| https://github.com/Paris/IronAHK /
| https://github.com/poa00/ahk.keysharp/blob/master/README.md
|
| https://github.com/autokey/autokey
|
| https://linux.die.net/man/7/xautomation
|
| http://sikulix.com/
|
| https://github.com/phil294/AHK_X11
|
| https://github.com/jordansissel/xdotool
|
| https://github.com/baskerville/sxhkd
| byteknight wrote:
| TreeSize is far better IMHO
| accrual wrote:
| I'm a fan of WinDirStat. Yes it can be slow, but it runs on darn
| near every Win OS, hasn't changed in years, is a small
| executable, and the site always seems available. I used it many
| times to solve disk space issues on the job.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Treemaps are generally a really cool way to visualise
| hierarchical data. See also the Observatory of Economic
| Complexity, which has treemaps of international trade and
| economic statistics.
|
| https://oec.world/profile/country/gbr#yearly-trade
| ConradKilroy wrote:
| fancy and interesting, thx for sharing.
| mckjns wrote:
| For my MacOS friends, it might be a little outdated but I prefer
| GrandPerspective: https://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
| Levitating wrote:
| Another oss alternative that a like is SpaceSniffer[1]. It
| doesn't have the color coding but it is much faster and updates
| live.
|
| [1]: http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/
| cush wrote:
| I feel like I've been using this tool for 20 years. So useful!
| tbrizitsky wrote:
| There are quite many apps for visualizing disk folder structure
| for almost any OS. Any flavor you like: lists (diskwave,
| omnidisk), treemaps (GrandPerspective), pie charts (DiskSavvy),
| sunburst (baobab), icicle, etc.
|
| The two winning visualization types are sunburst and treemaps.
| Both have their own cons and pros, but in our tests user sunburst
| performed slightly better for regular users. My personal bet is
| that no disk space analyzing tool's developer took it seriously
| or tried to actually advance the algorithms. Most of the apps I
| know use quite straightforward implementation and haven't been
| touched for years. Guess a little bit of filtering, grouping and
| changing coloring algorithms could significantly improve the
| treemap's perception, but someone has to do the job.
|
| disclaimer: I'm the original designer of DaisyDisk.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| Thank you for DaisyDisk, it's my go-to when I need to free up
| some space and it's a delight to use!
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Hey, your DaisyDisk UI gets stolen for Movies and stuff. Here,
| TV Series, Person of Interest used the interface to make a
| fancy scene!
|
| https://x.com/brajeshwar/status/1733390176112800037
| tbrizitsky wrote:
| I'm surprised they photo-manipulated that much. The makers of
| Unfriended: Dark Web just used the actual app :)
| kazinator wrote:
| I use WinDirStat. At one point a number of years ago, I became
| curious about the parent program KDirStat. So I actually got that
| installed on some Ubuntu or something. It was interesting. Like a
| prototype for WinDirStat or something.
| SantiagoElf wrote:
| TreeSizeView also works perfectly.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| been using GrandPerspective on Mac for the past 15 years and
| still v. happy with it
| tylervigen wrote:
| I have used WinDirStat for years. It's not perfect, but it solves
| my use case very well.
|
| My use case is just: my disk is full, I don't know why. This
| happens on one of my computers like once a year, so the fact that
| it's slow is fine. It usually helps me spot some folder set that
| is taking up a lot of space that I don't need on that PC, or
| something large that is duplicated.
|
| My personal favorite example is wedding photos and videos. Turns
| out: those are huge, I am not going to delete them, but they
| don't need to be backed up on every computer I own.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Probably the one thing you should over do the backups for
| Dwedit wrote:
| WizTree directly reads the MFT, and is a LOT faster, but it is
| not a free program.
| 0969mime0969 wrote:
| I love WinDirStat and was pleasantly surprised to learn there is
| also a Linux variant that is really good.
| https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat
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